Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Blueberries Reduce TNBC Tumor Growth and Spread

More good news about the berries we love: Researchers at the City of Hope say blueberries can control tumor growth, decrease metastasis, and kill the cells of triple-negative breast cancer-—cancers that are negative for estrogen and progesterone receptors and for the epidermal growth hormone Her2. In laboratory tests using blueberry extract on cell cultures, the equivalent of four ounces a day of blueberries (for a 130-pound woman) led to a reduction in weight of those tumors--they weighed 70 percent less than those without the steady blueberry intake. And these tasty disease fighters doubled the rate of cell death of TNBC. Check out the City of Hope’s story on the research. Researchers hope to broaden this research through clinical studies to see if the results hold up in the human body.

What a dandy way to self-medicate.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

While I'm naturally very pleased to hear about this study, it's important to note that these tests were conducted with blueberry extract on models of laboratory animals, and the results are therefore very preliminary.

I wish that real cancer in real people responded to all the things they've done to cancer cells in a test tube/model/animal setting. Because then a lot more of us would be cancer-free. Sigh.

Please keep us posted!

Also--would it be feasible to post about clinical trials for us triple-negative folks? There's so much to wade through, I"m afraid I'll miss something.

Thank you!

Patricia Prijatel said...

Thanks for the clarification--I went back and edited my post accordingly. And I will see about adding a feed on clinical trials. I try to post those when I find them, but there certainly is a more efficient way of doing that. Take care. Pat